People

Below are the current list of Birmingham Perl Mongers, who have been brave enough to have some of the details available on the site. Most of us are at each meeting, so hopefully you'll recognise at least one of us, if you want to come and join us. We're a friendly bunch, and always willing to meet new Perl Mongers.

If you wish to include your details, send a brief bio of yourself and photo to webmaster@birmingham.pm.org. See examples of the bios below for an idea of what to include.

The Regulars

Search by Name:

everyone | A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 
barbie
Name:barbie
Level:Board Member
Job:Senior Perl developer, a professional lighting engineer, a roadie, a father of 2, a CPAN Author and a general Perl ligger :)
CPANID:BARBIE
Links:

I started programming BASIC and Assembler on my ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum from 1980 onwards. Studied a HND in Computer Studies at Coventry, and started commercial programming (C/Unix ... there was no Windows then) in 1986.

As a software programmer & systems designer, I have been involved with the design & development of many different applications, including The System-X Telephone Exchange Design System (using AI & Expert System principles), fruit/quiz machines, The System5 Medical Management Software, many n-tier architecture solutions and Mephisto (a comprehensive web site management tool for LEAs) covering a range of software languages and skills.

In early 1999, a friend went on a Perl course. When I saw what was possible with it, I realised that it was the language for me. Up until that point I had been a dedicated C/Unix programmer and knew most of what there was to know of C, shell script, sed, awk & regexs, so Perl was quite an easy transition.

Aside from being the leader (and co-founder) of the Birmingham Perl Mongers, a speaker at numerous Birmingham.pm technical meetings, international conferences and workshops, as well as an invited guest speaker at numerous Perl & Linux user groups. I am a CPAN author, and the caretaker behind CPAN Testers, looking after many of the CPAN Testers websites and administering the tools that service the data and perform statistical analysis.

I was one of the organisers of the 2006 YAPC::Europe Perl Conference in Birmingham, and now a member of the YAPC::Europe Foundation Venue Committee, helping to provide support and advice to future organisers. Following the 2006 YAPC::Europe conference, I started the YAPC Conference Surveys, which has resulted in greater responses each year. From 2009 the survey will now be conducted for YAPC::NA as well as YAPC::Europe. The data and analysis from the surveys can now be found at the YAPC Conference Surveys website.

My non-IT career involves being a professional lighting engineer, drum technician and roadie. Have worked with many unknowns, a few famous people, but had the most fun with IQ, Ark and Prolapse.

 

Levels

Now that Birmingham Perl Mongers have become a registered not-for-profit company, our membership policy has had to change. Prior to incorporation anyone joining the mailing list or coming along to a meeting could consider themselves a member of the group. However, due to our incorporated status, we need to recognise membership in a more official capacity. The key below indicates the meaning of each level listed in each person's biography above.

Board Member An officer of the registered company.
Member An annually paid-up official member of the company.
Administrator Our non-member mascots.
Contributor A non-member of the company, but someone who has contributed to the content of the website or presented technical talks to the group.
Subscriber A non-member of the company, but someone who is a regular attendee of the social and/or technical meetings, or a frequent poster to the mailing list.

If you wish to become a paid-up member of Birmingham Perl Mongers, an annual fee of £25 (twenty-five pounds) for waged members and £10 (ten pounds) for unwaged members is requested. See one of the board members at one of our meetings or readour Terms and Conditions of Membership for more details. The membership fee is used to help fund the group for technical meetings by helping to pay for expenses for guest speakers and paying for incidentals such as new bulbs or repairs to the projector.

If you simply wish to be added to the website as a regular attendee of the group, please email Barbie with a picture of yourself (it'll be resized if necessary) together with some background info about yourself. Use the existing bios above as a guide as to what to include.